I've actually been doing a Let's Play of the game. Picked it up earlier this week and am now level 7 if I recall.

Some things that have struck me so far:

1. I don't feel like the combat rewards technical play very well. I keep on trying to be elegant about things, but attempting to use special moves often feels less effective than simply pointing at an enemy and button mashing. In general, it seems like the combat could be more developed than what it is. It's fine, but so often it just ends up being frantic.

2. I think Find Hidden is probably the worst idea ever. Find Hidden removes a large degree of the fun of exploration because you can't actually have the satisfaction of finding anything. If you have the appropriate level of Find Hidden, it marks it on your map. If you don't, you can't interact with it. Nobody wins in this implementation. There is no satisfaction.

3. The crafting skills seems sort of like clutter, and the crafting items clutter up the game with stuff you don't care about. Nothing's much more disheartening than opening a chest (or a hidden cache OMG!) and finding a pile of crafting components for a craft you don't use or care about. I do like that there's less searching around in an infinite number of places for loot (I'm looking at you, Skyrim and Fallout), but sadly loot that there is to find is often not very thrilling.

4. The PC controls are saddening. It's a port from a console, and it feels that way.

5. The map is interestingly tight and yet expansive. It's tight in the sense that I feel like I have scarcely gone anywhere in the game and yet I've explored large swaths of the world map. It's expansive in the sense that I have to run half a mile to get between here and the next place that's actually interesting, with not much along the way to distract me other than plants to harvest (badly) for components that don't particularly interest me. It's a really awkward straddling the fence place to be, because it's not tight enough to get away from the boredom of getting from here to there, but it's not big enough to really blow my mind in how expansive the game world is.

6. Yay crashes. Three times so far. To be real, though, that's about par for the course for PC releases these days. And, to be fair, the PC platform is more complicated than it used to be. Space Quest 1 never crashed, but Space Quest 1 came from a simpler time.

7. Camera movement is bouncy, awkward, and claustrophobic. If the camera any closer I feel like I'd have to advise my character on colonoscopy prep. That lack of distance can make it hard to keep the camera steady when there are obstacles in the environment, especially during combat when it's warping all over the place trying (and failing) to keep the full combat scene in the field of view.

Maybe some positives:

1. It's pretty. It's glowy. The characters look good. Sometimes it's so glowy it's hard to tell what's glowing that I can loot and what's just glowing because GLOW.

2. The amount of depth in character ability specialization seems pretty cool. I am down with it, though sometimes I wish I could just bust out that nice purple sword I picked up even though I've been specializing in daggers this whole time so far. That's the price we pay for these kinds of systems, though.

3. Story seems okay so far.

I could probably think of more, but it's harder to think of positives when the negatives stick out so much more. I'm not saying I'm not having fun with it, because I am, but I feel like there's some missed opportunities to really make it shine. And I mean in a metaphorical sense, because the visuals have enough shine.

Biggest Game Hunter, as well as collector of pets and mounts. Currently hunting paladins' former glory.

Oh boy! All my rage for nothing! Yes KoA uses Origin if you buy the physical copy or if you buy it per Origin itself. But if you buy it per Steam Origin is not!!!! needed! Bought it yesterday and having a blast! So if you're scared by Origin (like me), buy it from Steam! Ok Steam is evil itself, but (maybe?) the lesser evil. I still don't have any counter-informations to my claims from Aubade, but luckily it doesn't matter

Since this game is definately just a port from console to PC I really want to try to get my SteelSeries controller to work for it but last night I couldn't figure out how to do it..

Any ideas?

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Ugh - fun game until I happened to get to the "Pride Before a Fall" quest. There's a guy you're supposed to kill there (Callis Dren), but I had already seen him a few hours earlier and killed him without the item that makes it easier to do so. Unfortunately, the main storyline quest doesn't recognize that so I'm stuck with no way to progress.

Anyone happen to have a PC save some time in that area that they could upload and give me a link to? I really don't care about what level/spec/look, etc. you are - just want to beat the game since I'm probably only a few hours from it. (preferably a save from after you're on the new continent, going to get Ventrinio or already saved him, about to fight Dren - You can find them at in your steam folder under \userdata\<some number>\102500\).

I like the game quite a lot. And dare I say it but I find it a bit more compelling than Skyrim! I just feel a lot of the big side quests tie in better to the world. But on the other hand I feel some of the background given by the sidequests, is almost mandatory to understanding why some things happen. Which is fine if you like doing all the side stuff, but I could imagine someone who just goes down the main line having no clue about why some things are.

Camera is awful, it jumps about a lot and doesn't feel natural at all.

Find Hidden skill almost feels mandatory, as you feel like you are missing out on things if you don't have it.

And the difficulty... It's hard to explain, but the entire difficulty level for me seems to be very random, as since you get interrupted when you take a hit, it's very possible if you get cornered to effectively be stunlocked. Yet on the other hand, it's very very easy to do the same to enemies. So the same fight could have you not take a hit, or get slaughtered. Which feels very odd.

Esilence wrote:And the difficulty... It's hard to explain, but the entire difficulty level for me seems to be very random, as since you get interrupted when you take a hit, it's very possible if you get cornered to effectively be stunlocked.

Block/dodge roll more? I haven't had a problem with getting stunlocked, but I'm a whore for the dodge roll.

- I'm not Jesus, but I can turn water into Kool-Aid.- A Sergeant in motion outranks an officer who doesn't know what the hell is going on.- A demolitions specialist at a flat run outranks everybody.

Esilence wrote:And the difficulty... It's hard to explain, but the entire difficulty level for me seems to be very random, as since you get interrupted when you take a hit, it's very possible if you get cornered to effectively be stunlocked.

Block/dodge roll more? I haven't had a problem with getting stunlocked, but I'm a Panda Monk.

Fixed

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Esilence wrote:And the difficulty... It's hard to explain, but the entire difficulty level for me seems to be very random, as since you get interrupted when you take a hit, it's very possible if you get cornered to effectively be stunlocked.

Block/dodge roll more? I haven't had a problem with getting stunlocked, but I'm a whore for the dodge roll.

My roll has been changed into a "Blink" by destiny choice. And it feels much less reliable now. It's near instant, but because you are in one place then another, the enemies appear to (more often than not) simply carry on their attack/spell but just automatically turn to your new position and hit you. Because of this I find it much more productive to blink straight through the enemy.

It does look far more impressive than rolling though when you get it all just right and your blinking all over slicing everything up

I got a talent that lets me do an attack with either faeblades/daggers straight out of roll, and dear god. I spam that ability ALLL the time. Just dodge/attack, dodge/attack, dodge/attack. It's ridiculously OP. I also have the riposte skill which is really nice against humanoids.

I spent almost the entire weekend playing this and I really enjoyed the stories so far. I completed the House of Ballads, Warsworn & (mage group?) stories and thought they were really cool. I really don't think I'm anywhere close to the finish.. without spoiling things I just finished getting to one of the BIG Eastern cities where you take ships to other areas. (Hopefully not too vague)

I agree with others that the "Find Hidden" is mandatory if you want to get all the loot and you can't "find" anything without it. I dislike the way they handle the RNG of chests / mob drops.. the best weapon I’ve found was at like level 20 (now i'm 30) and dropped off a pack of wolves.. but a big fancy chest at the end of a major chain or hidden behind a hidden door only has whites in it.

I also feel that they may have implemented too many sets.. Every single set piece I've found has been put into the stash if I'm not using it and I've only gotten 2 pieces of the same set and I’ve found at least 15?

All said and done though... RNG is RNG

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I grabbed the demo of this over the weekend and had a play. Visually it's pretty impressive. I like the stylized WoW-like graphic design. I find the over-textured look of games like LoTRO and Oblivion very visually jarring, but this one is nice.

However, I hate the control system and camera so much I don't think I could play through the full game. That console-like control paradigm - where movement is always relative to the screen rather than the character, and there's no strafing - it just drives me up the wall. I guess that's understandable, given that the only games I've ever put more than a few hours into are WoW and Doom II.

rodos wrote:However, I hate the control system and camera so much I don't think I could play through the full game. That console-like control paradigm - where movement is always relative to the screen rather than the character, and there's no strafing - it just drives me up the wall. I guess that's understandable, given that the only games I've ever put more than a few hours into are WoW and Doom II.

After a couple of hours on the PC 'dealing' with how much I disliked the controls they became second nature and I was able to forget how much I disliked them.

I will say that I put enough hours this weekend into the game that when I got back on SWTOR last night I pressed spacebar to try to dodge in pvp..laughing ensued.

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i actually haven't played wow in about 3 weeks since this game came out. i don't know...i think i just got tired of LFR and having to work with other people.

thinking about stopping my sub till the expac comes out or re-upping in a couple months...but right now, KOA is really keeping me busy and having a blast. i finished the game but reloading to around level 31 because of the level lock situation. basically, going to get as close to level 40 as i can in the western continent before going east...so that those instances and levels lock as close to 40 or at 40 as much as possible.

since i finished the game, had some of the finesse/rogue gear. i leveled as full might...but that rogue class with lunge, the shadow blade thing, smoke bomb and gambit..is pretty fun. will probably level a rogue next.

the warsworn was probably my favorite faction quest/lore so far in the game. kind of a mix of warrior/paladin from wow. the warrior aspect and the fact that they started out as demon-hunters...sort of like pally's vs the undead.

twinkfist wrote:i finished the game but reloading to around level 31 because of the level lock situation. basically, going to get as close to level 40 as i can in the western continent before going east...so that those instances and levels lock as close to 40 or at 40 as much as possible.

from what i understand...when you move to a certain zone...that zone locks onto your level and then it can't be changed.

so basically, the main quest can be completed by level 22 if you ignore the side quests. which is great...but say you play till level 40...well, that last level will have locked to where you were when you entered...so all the enemies will be "gray" and while they will drop set items...they will be for level 22 players..not level 40.

here are the links to the main site that explain it much better than i ever could.

Spent over 100 hours on this game, firstly with a pure Might character up to 34, then now on a pure Sorcery.

Combat is close to a hack-n-slash game if you play might or sorcery. The game puts a lot of emphasis on stagger. Being attacked will make you stagger and interrupt combos. Large mobs like trolls don't stagger much and that's about the only thing that makes combat interesting. Spread-out mobs with ranged and melee targets present more of a challenge, but in general combat is easy.

But combat feels great. Combat simply plays like an action game. That's really the best thing about this game. I heard Finesse (rogue) builds have more interesting combat, but I've never like daggers.

Quests are a lot like WOW quests except with the odd persuasion or dispelling option thrown in if you have the required skill. You don't really need to know what you're doing to finish the game. While the world is an open world, there are certain main quests that lock you out of later zones.

Side quests are few compared to Skyrim, but then the world in Reckoning is relatively small, too.

Loot is mostly junk or salvaging fodder. The percentage multipliers are implemented *wrong*, making percentage multiplier components the only meaningful component in crafting. Salvaging is very random, a Master Blacksmith salvaging a piece of gear expecting to get a Master ranked component more often than not gets a Basic level component.

Set gear have no value except for looks, since the majority are random drops and you out-grow sets faster than you can collect. Unique gear the same. More often than not, the unique gear you get will be already a few levels below you, making it about the same strength as a green drop. Blacksmithing gear will always out-perform all drops and sets (which is good because you spent skill points in it). Set bonuses are not special in any way, just boring stats.

Player housing is just somewhere that provides a bed, a stash, and some of the crafting stations required. You cannot customize anything else.

Lockpicking and dispelling mini-games become very boring after the first hour.

User interface on the PC is quite pre-historic. That is to say, it's obviously designed with little regard for PC players. Mouseover use is extremely rare, the "you can equip or junk items directly while you loot" concept is badly implemented. Say you open a chest with three weapons, you have to right-click-inspect each weapon if you want to decide whether to junk immediately. And with the way blacksmithing is designed, any respectable blacksmith will be inspecting each piece of gear to decide whether to salvage it or junk it for gold.

Menu structure is awkward at best (skills and abilities should have both be at the root level, instead of one at root and one hidden under Status), switching between the two maps and the quest log is tedious.

When combining shards to make stronger shards, the shards are sorted from strongest to weakest, while showing the top-level shards, too. But that's just stupid. You can't strengthen the strongest shards, why the heck would you want to display them at the top? It means after each combine, the player has to scroll down to the weaker shards for the next combine.

Blacksmithing new gear doesn't show you the quantity of each component you have. So you need to plan out everything before you go in and craft.

There's no "loot all" key, you have to point and click. There's no "mouseover junk-this-item" key, you have to right-click-junk. Picking up or junking stacked items directly from the loot window will always ask for the quantity, and in over 100 hours of play, I have not once chosen any quantity other than the full stack.

Level-locking mechanism is a good idea, but badly implemented. You can easily lock a potential level 13 zone at level 6 just by running a small side quest. I would have preferred it if the zones are level-capped instead of level-locked.

All in all the game is "not quite there" as it stands now. The only reason I keep playing is because combat is fun. It really is. I plan another play-through as Finesse. Then it's up to the DLCs and patches to make me interested again. The way it stands, unless the crafting gets a big overhaul, there's little reason to invest more money in this game.

That said, it's still a good game, and I believe I'll come back to it in two or three years time. It's just not quite a "great" game. Don't get me wrong, the fun I get out of it was worth the money, but there's just too many little things that could have made this a great game. As of now I'm holding back on the first content DLC in the hopes that they fix up the level-lock and some of the UI problems.

mozen, just read on the main boards that there is a patch coming...but probably not till after the DLC.

Schilling went on the main boards and said that the DLC is contracted with EA so that has a scheduled release and it's coming out when it's coming out.

he also went onto say that there is a patch on the way...and just listed two main things at least on the patch...Difficulty and the camera...now, i would prefer every level to match where you are level wise...so if you go to an early level at 10...it's 10...and if you come back at 40...it's at 40...but not sure how they would work that.

but, there is a patch on the way...probably after the DLC.

i went back and found an old save before i did the house of valor...and running it at level 40 to get the best gear possible. that 2h sword from that place is flat-out sick.